


Revival

by lost_decade



Category: Formula E RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: Angst, Character Study, First Time, Introspection, M/M, Multi, Unrequited Love, apparently I enjoy making André sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-11-28 15:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20969042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_decade/pseuds/lost_decade
Summary: He knows, without it being pointed out, that he's very much feeling sorry for himself. Also it isn't the first time he's fucked another driver, and he'd bet on it not being the last, but the mornings after rarely come coated in this level of restlessness----A series of moments, going back in time from the present to the start of 2019, very much inspired by various Instagram antics.





	1. Revived. 24.09.19

There's a certain unavoidable vanity that goes along with being a racing driver, something speaking of the golden age that André had embraced so wholeheartedly at Goodwood a couple of weeks earlier. He likes to dress up, to look his best and keep his body in as good shape as his cars, even if no one who would care enough to notice actually gets to touch him. Takako tells him he looks gorgeous, slicing figs into a bowl on the counter of his (_their_) kitchen. The juice drips all over her fingers and she sucks them clean in a way that with anyone else would be seductive, but with her is childlike. She giggles and he catches her wrist and licks away a stray trickle of the sticky liquid from her hand before kissing her chastely on the lips. 

_ You're so messy darling_, his words lilting and intentionally camp. It's 1965 and there's an AC Cobra in the driveway and this is what marital bliss would be like. This is what love could be like. 

The sun is bright, late September midday, on the bliss that could be. If André was a kid playing the games of kings, then Gordes would be his fortress, high atop the hills of the Luberon, poised to ward off any unwanted visitors from the valley below. 

Benoit isn't unwanted, never. 

Takako pours them homemade lemonade and films them on her phone while André heaves the rowing machine to and fro. Later he uploads it to his stories for all the men who no longer want to press their lips to his skin to see how taut it still is, how solid his abs are, to make their mouths water at the memory of kissing over them. Ben's gaze flickers between André and Takako when he thinks André isn't looking, and André ignores it. He thinks of the Revival, of Ben and Marcel there at his side like the three musketeers of Audi reborn into the past with their murky D'Artagnan lingering on the fringes.

_ In the bathroom, guiding André onto his knees like Arthur ruining Merlin before Lancelot has a look-in._

Marcel had hid his disapproval well, cloaked in the same nonchalance he always employed. Ben had squeezed his arm after, whispered _ oh André, _ and bought him another drink to wash away the bitter taste of Tom lingering at the back of his throat. _ You don't have to keep doing this to yourself _ \- Ben's voice, exasperated.

It makes him shiver now, and he thinks back to after the TT and standing arm in arm with Chris, victory garlands around their necks, cigars between their lips. Enough joy and pride to drown out all the rest. 

Ben fixes up his bike and they head out into the dusty afternoon, just the two of them, just like he used to long for and cherish. Takako tells them she'll have dinner waiting when they return and Ben looks at him with something close to pity. 

Ben will never know about the nights in the motorhome back in the old days, André's face pressed into the pillow and his hand moving beneath the covers, telling himself lies. 

  



	2. Fairytale. 14.09.19

André isn't sure - he decides to ask Takako, even though as soon as the thought presents itself he knows he'll forget - how women wear eye make-up without literally having it slide down their entire faces by the end of a night out. Sometime after this thought he remembers that Takako rarely wears makeup anyway so possibly he should ask one of the other women he knows, starts to type out a text to Lorene but then stops himself when he remembers Jev's message from a few days before and the cryptic 'things are difficult'. André doesn't want to think about 'things are difficult', the phrase brings out a whole load of awful, spiteful feelings about what might happen if things were to carry on being difficult and a brief window of possibility might open up itself up to him. He knows it'll never happen. Even if they break up it still won't happen. It's a lesson he learned a long time ago, years before Jev, before Techeetah. He thinks of Charlie and feels irredeemably guilty. 

Tonight isn't a night for such heaviness though and it's easy enough to get lost in the glamour and nostalgia that's carried him through two days of the Revival already. It turns out it's harder to be miserable when you're wearing a cape and a parade of gorgeous waiters keep feeding you sours.  


_ Nice look _ a voice says while André is leaning over the mirror trying to fix his eyeliner. He tenses, finishing up to buy himself a couple of seconds, before standing back and meeting Tom's eyes in the mirror rather than turning to face him. Haven't they always viewed each other through a prism anyway?

Tom's look is ridiculous and André deliberately tells him so, guessing at the chastisement that will come. He looks moodily at his own reflection while Tom takes the picture on his phone, another image to form part of their story. André wishes someone had captured them earlier that day instead, in their vintage finery, maybe standing in front of the Cobra after he'd put it on pole. He pictures it, Tom's arm around him, telling him how proud he is, exaltation that could only be higher if it was spoken from the lips of his dad. It's been ten years, he thinks, lucidity in amongst the drunkenness (which he's overplaying because it's easier that way), ten years and halfway around the world and the need for any of them still hasn't diminished. It makes his skin crawl with shame because they, all of them, have moved on. André has moved on too, from place to place, city to countryside, team to team, lover to lover. Moving without really going anywhere (maybe he's drunker than he thought. Fuck this).

The praise he is silently hoping for does come, mixed of course with the usual derision. André soaks it up regardless, down on his knees with his eyeliner running down his cheeks and his heart as full as his mouth. 


	3. Breathe. 25.08.19

He swims when the rest of them have all retired to bed, the sun gone down after a day of scorching the earth; late-August and Gordes could almost be the desert. _ Shall I wait up? _ Takako had asked, and André had looked her in the eye and detected in her voice the question she was really asking.  _ Probably not,  _ he'd shrugged, noncommittally. He's given Nicolas the room Takako occasionally sleeps in, reserving the bigger guest bedroom for Jean-Éric, the one with the view out over the swimming pool and the valley beyond the acres that belong to him.  


The whole meet-up had been easier than André anticipated it would, the initial unease when the three of them had first arrived in Monaco having smoothed itself out by the time they'd had an afternoon talking and relaxing on the beach in Eze, Jean-Éric having apparently out-of-the-blue decided that André was now forgiven for leaving the team. He'd talked of Ant a lot, transparent enough that André realised it was deliberate, that Jean-Éric wanted him to be jealous. He hadn't said that if Jev was trying to make him jealous then all he had to do was talk about his actual ready-assembled family rather than his new teammate. Although something else sticks in André's head, the words spoken quietly enough that they wouldn't jar with their banter and the brightness of the sunshine:  _ Lorene didn't want me to come here.  _

Swimming normally bores him, but tonight the water is cooling, calming on both his skin and the layers beneath it. It isn't his preferred form of exercise but it's okay, it puts a little space between now and the decision of which bedroom to go to when he gets back inside.  _ As if you have a choice, mate.  _ James' accent in his head this time. 

He does. Have a choice, that is. He's signed enough contracts to know that, a ballpoint flourish and everything goes away, a new slate is presented to him. Start from zero.  


Things were fine. Things were great in Monaco, and on the drive back, just old friends catching up (and it feels like old friends with Jev, like they've been a part of each other forever, some fake history that André invents sometimes to the extent he thinks he'll come across a photograph one day of the two of them from ten years before, can even see the image if he closes his eyes). It was only when they were back in Gordes that it shifted, that Jean-Éric had pushed the charm and the flirting and André, erection hidden behind his shorts and apron as he tended the grill, had let himself flirt back, had taken the kiss Jev had offered and had seen in his eyes the possibility of more. 

They shouldn't. He went to Porsche to avoid this, to avoid the mornings of leaving or being left. Neel talks about his kids and his exercise regime, a safe and respectful partnership, it's what André needs.  


The sliding door of the guest bedroom opens, André just catching the soft click and faintest motion in the dark as he raises his head from the water to breathe, a sliver of skin in the moonlight. He rests at the edge of the pool, allowing himself a glance at Jev, naked and waiting, his earlier offer evidenced in flesh. André takes a deep breath, lowering himself beneath the surface for a long moment, allowing himself to believe he has a choice. 

When he hauls himself up again his heart is pounding, the air rushing back into his lungs. 


	4. Cigarette. 27.04.19

He wakes up early, desperately dehydrated but not too concerned at the immediate unfamiliarity of his surroundings, that's what a lifetime of living from hotel to hotel will do to you. The scent of cigarette smoke fills his nostrils, sending a sudden wave of nausea rolling through him, a sink or swim solution. He kind of wants one.  


Slowly the evening before unfolds in his mind, drowning out the immediacy of his hangover: the rain, the hail, the podium. Then later, the celebrations that seem neverending for Jev's birthday, Jev's housewarming, the place he moved into with Lorene. It isn't just another hotel bedroom and he opens his eyes slowly but it's obvious what he'll find, the tangle of limbs and sighs of pleasure a roll of film unspooling within his mind. Strength has limits, especially when you drown it in Grey Goose.  


He allows himself to focus on the solid weight of Jev beside him, soft open mouthed breathing, his body on display where he'd kicked off the covers during the night. He's lying on his back and André can't help from staring, letting his eyes draw a slow path from the rise and fall of his chest down to his navel, to the trail of soft hair he'd nuzzled at when they'd fallen into bed the night before. How it reveals itself to him now, his brain grasping at all the fractured memories and trying to put the jigsaw back together, the weight of Jev on his tongue, the words that had spilled from his mouth as André had sucked him. It's harder to believe them in the daylight, they belong to the night, to the drunken recklessness and desire that feels light years away this morning.  _ Fuck, I want you. I need you. I lo.... _

He exhales, pressing his aching head back into the pillow and cursing. It's easy to re-write it in his head, to pretend Jev had been looking at him and not Lorene.  


God, if he had his camera now it would be so easy just to capture him, in monochrome the light would paint him beautifully, perfectly, an image André could keep forever. 

He turns away, toward the wafting cigarette smoke, aware of course that Lorene will be watching them. As suspected, she is, sitting in the wingback chair beside the window, her slender legs hooked over one arm of the smooth leather, wearing only the mint green lace knickers that André remembers sliding down her thighs the night before. She stubs out the cigarette and immediately lights another one, her expression soft but her eyes knowing. How does she feel about Santiago, André wonders, about the two of them? He wishes he could have seen her reaction when Jev told her, but he can picture it all the same, can hear Jev's voice telling her it was just a fuck, just a release of the build up of desire that had become too much to contain. 

He slips from the sheets and goes to her, takes the cigarette from her lips and presses it to his own, the two of them sharing until there's nothing but embers. 

André sinks to his knees then, in an echo of the night before he removes her underwear, pushes his face against her and his fingers into her, a plea or an apology without words.


	5. Bed. 24.01.19

His skin is sticky against the sheets, grey morning creeping in through the curtains as time drags them forwards, closer to the race but further from the night before. It's slipping away from them now and André would be a fool if he thinks he can hold onto time, lost tenths slipping through his fingers. He is a fool, but a realistic one at that.  


Beside him, Jean-Éric still sleeps, his skin warm when André rolls over to rest the palm of his hand on his shoulder. He doesn't stir yet, it's early after all and the hours of sleep they should have had were spent elsewhere, hands and lips on skin and whispered promises, never intended to be kept. 

Jean-Éric's fingers have left marks on André's hips, his mouth had sucked a pattern of bruises on the insides of André's thighs in frantic admiration and desire and André had poured all of his longing into Jev's body, held and touched and watched him fall apart like the gift it was. Some gifts you can't keep though and André is resigned to this one never being intended for him.  


He thinks about Lorene while Jean-Éric makes the soft sounds of dreams, gentler than the moans that slipped from his lips as André had pressed inside his body. Will Jev tell her? Yeah, André figures he probably will, that it'll all work out fine for him.  _ Just like it always does.  _ Which is a bitter thought and an unfair one too, given the past, but there's no one keeping André's bed warm in Gordes so isn't he allowed a little bitterness this time. 

_ Stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself, asshole _ . It's weird how his inner voice of reason always sounds like his dad.

He knows, without it being pointed out, that he's very much feeling sorry for himself. Also it isn't the first time he's fucked another driver, and he'd bet on it not being the last, but the mornings after rarely come coated in this level of restlessness, like his life depends on either doing it again or just, well, leaving the room, going to find out if his own is ready yet.

When daytime does eventually encroach too much they'll make love in the shower and André won't notice until days later that Jean-Éric has kept the t-shirt he'd settled down to sleep in the night before. The sheets will be changed and an endless stream of new guests will check in and out of the room, unaware of the secrets within its walls. 


End file.
